Ice cream cone and milk shake makers are standard equipment not only in ice cream parlors but also in convenience restaurants. There are a large number of different models made by a number of different manufacturers, including machines that make only cones, machines that make only milk shakes, and machines that make both. Nevertheless, most of these machines have basically similar plumbing and therefore similar cleaning needs.
Cone and shake makers, like most food processing machines, need to be cleaned thoroughly every day to prevent the growth of bacteria. The problem addressed by this invention is how to efficiently clean cone and shake makers.
Until now, cone and shake makers have been cleaned manually. Proper manual cleaning requires extensive disassembly of the cone and shake maker so that each component which is exposed to food products can be thoroughly cleaned. In a typical cone and shake maker with four syrup flavors, there are dozens of components which need to be cleaned. Proper cleaning of such a machine will typically take 1.5 man hours each day.
Disassembly for cleaning creates at least two major problems: breakage caused by mishandling the equipment, and unsanitary conditions caused by failure to meticulously clean every component. In fact, a common problem is the failure of restaurant personnel to clean the cone and shake maker every day, because the cleaning procedure is so tedious and takes so long.
The present invention is a system and method for cleaning, in place, fluid product dispensers such as cone and shake makers. The primary purpose of the invention is to provide an effective, but easier way to clean these machines. The preferred embodiment of the present invention allows a typical cone and shake maker to be cleaned using less than one third of the manpower previously used. Once the clean in place system is attached to cone and shake maker, the cleaning cycle requires no human intervention--leaving the user free to perform other tasks. Typically, the cleaning cycle takes 20 to 30 minutes--thereby reducing not only the manpower used, but also reducing the total time occupied by the cleaning process by approximately half.
Since most cone and shake makers are cleaned at the end of the business day, providing a short cleaning cycle is important so as not to unnecessarily delay restaurant closings. Currently, the cleaning of the cone and shake maker is often the last task to be completed by the cleanup crew.
The closest prior art systems known to the inventors are the clean in place systems used in dairy processing plants. In particular, both the dairy plant cleaning systems and the present invention perform their cleaning tasks by running water and water mixed with cleaning chemicals through the food processing channels.
However, cone and shake machines have a number of physical characteristics which make their cleaning requirements different than those of dairy processing plants. For instance, physical space restrictions are much less important in a dairy processing plant than in a restaurant. Therefore dairy plant systems can use large baths for mixing detergents and sanitizing chemicals with water, whereas this is not practical in a restaurant. Also, the clean in place systems for dairy plants are built into, or integrated with, the processing equipment. While the present invention can also be integrated into a cone and shake maker, there are tens of thousands of cone and shake makers being used which were not designed to include a clean in place system within the machine's housing. Therefore it has been one of the primary goals of the inventors to provide a practical clean in place system which can be housed in a moveable cart of reasonable size, e.g., no more than 3' by 2' by 3' tall. The inventors anticipate that most models of the invention, or at least most of those made during the next few years, will be housed in separate moveable carts which are connected to the cone and shake mixer only for cleaning.
Another difference between dairy plants and cone and shake machines is that cone and shake machines typically have several draw valves which are fed from the same freezer--requiring a series of steps for cleaning the draw valves one at a time. As a result of these factors the inventors determined that they needed to provide apparatus for automatically opening and closing draw valves in accordance with a specified sequence. Also, the cone and shake freezers and the draw valves were designed to be cleaned while disassembled--they were not designed to facilitate cleaning by a clean in place system. To solve this problem, the apparatus according to one aspect of the invention provides the agitation necessary for effective cleaning by activating, under program control, the mixing apparatus in the freezers and also for activating the spinners in the draw valves.